We are four months into village life with a newborn, a toddler with Down syndrome, and a four-year-old. Here is what raising kids in the countryside actually looks like – the good, the hard, and everything in between.
Who we are and where we live
We are a family of five. My partner and I, our four-year-old daughter Ms, our two-year-old son Mr who has Down syndrome, and our two-month-old son B. We live in a small village of just over a hundred people, in an eight-unit apartment building where six of the flats are permanently occupied. We have been here four months.
I grew up in a small town – somewhere between city and countryside, where you could walk to the lake, the school, the shop. Now we are properly rural, and raising kids in the countryside looks quite different from anything I had before. There are things I love deeply about it. There are things that are genuinely hard. I want to write both down honestly.
The hard parts
Village life means everyone knows everyone. Our neighbours come and go often, which is mostly warm and easy, but there is also gossip – the kind of small-community dynamic where people know things about you that you have not chosen to share. In a hundred-person village, privacy is a relative concept.
Everything is far. The nearest town is an hour’s drive away when we need anything beyond basics. There is a village nine kilometres away with a school, a nursery, a GP, a small shop, a pharmacy, a library, and somewhere to eat – which covers a lot. But for anything larger or more specific, we drive. With three small children that means packing bags, loading car seats, and committing to a journey every single time.
For Mr specifically, the distance is a real cost. His therapies – swimming, physiotherapy, creative therapy, special education, speech therapy – are all in the city an hour away. Each visit takes more than half a day. Because of that, we cannot schedule them as frequently as his development would benefit from. He would progress faster with more regular sessions. We simply cannot always make that work.
We have one car, and my partner uses it for work. On the days it is not available, the children and I are here. I cannot walk to the beach, to a playground, to anywhere, in the way I could in a town. Getting anywhere requires organisation, planning, and a car – and not always having one is a real limitation, particularly in summer when the children want to be outside and moving.
Public space is almost absent. I grew up with public beaches, playgrounds, and parks as a given – places that simply existed and were there for anyone. Here there is almost nowhere to just sit outside freely. The village square belongs to someone. We are welcome at the nursery playground when we go by car, but there is no equivalent of the town park, the lakeside bench, the place you drift to without planning.
The things I would not trade
The safety is something I did not fully understand until I lived it. Ms, at four years old, goes outside alone or with the neighbour’s children without me or my partner. There is a green lawn, a trampoline, a swing – and no through traffic, because the main road is far enough away that it simply is not a concern. B sleeps in his pram behind the house while I watch from the window. No one disturbs him. That kind of quiet, low-stakes outdoor freedom for small children is genuinely rare, and I do not take it lightly.
The community here is active and close. There is always someone to talk to, always children for the children to play with. Some days there are ten neighbourhood children outside together – local children and summer visitors – and the noise they make is the best kind. I can leave Mr in the care of a nine or twelve-year-old neighbour for a stretch and it is completely fine. The neighbour women have come to help with him when I needed it. These things happen naturally here in a way they simply do not in a city.
The municipality has been genuinely present in our lives. The people who run it know the people who live here. We have received real financial support for Mr’s transport to his therapies and for childcare during my recovery from a third c-section. The housing office handles things in the flat. The support is not abstract – it is personal and responsive in a way that larger systems rarely are.
The nursery and school are small, which means the groups are manageable and the approach is individual. When Mr starts there, the specialists will know him. That matters to me more than I can easily explain.
And then there is just the beauty of it. I walk to the harbour with B in the pram almost every day. There is no proper beach, but the sea is the sea. Walking past the neighbours’ gardens in summer means flower beds and blossoming trees and hedges. On the road, cows and sheep graze in the fields. It is genuinely, quietly lovely. Being outside here costs nothing and gives a great deal.
The quiet is a value in itself. Having come from city living, the absence of constant traffic noise is something I notice and appreciate every single day. Neighbours here keep to themselves when they want to and come together when it matters. There is room to just be.
And the grandparents are four kilometres away. My partner’s parents live in the neighbouring village, and he takes Ms and Mr there regularly so I can have time alone with B – time that functions, honestly, like rest. Having family that close is not something everyone gets, and I am grateful for it often.
What I actually think
Everyone knows whether rural life suits them or not. I am not going to tell anyone what the right answer is. But I will say this: I am genuinely convinced that for a family with children, raising kids in the countryside – in a safe, close-knit community surrounded by nature – is better than raising them in a large city. The freedom, the quiet, the space, the way the community holds children as a shared concern – these things have real value that is hard to put a number on.
Alone it might feel isolating, especially in winter when there are fewer places to go in the evenings. But for a family? For these three children who run on the grass and sleep in the sea air and know every neighbour by name? I think they will remember this well. I hope they will.
You are not alone.
If this story resonated with you and you’d like to go deeper, you can explore my e-book Our Journey – A Different Path. It offers honest reflections and lived experience beyond this post.
If you’re looking for practical support, I’ve created Routine Templates to help parents and children navigate daily life with more clarity, structure, and understanding.
You can also read my previous posts or follow along on Instagram @parentguidancehub, where I share everyday reflections on parenting, family life, and finding balance.
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